


to die would be an awfully great adventure

by klaineanummel



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 20:53:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2555276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klaineanummel/pseuds/klaineanummel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt reminisces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to die would be an awfully great adventure

**Author's Note:**

> hello :) so, i wrote this story about a year ago and then forgot about it. i recently found it, read it, and decided i might as well post it. 
> 
> this is an Up AU. please head the warning and the title. read the end notes if you don't want any surprises.
> 
> i would like to remind everyone that i am spoiler free for season 6. please help me stay that way :)
> 
> all mistakes are my own. hope you enjoy!

“Excuse me, dear,” Kurt asks as loudly as he can manage, thankfully loud enough for the nurse passing by to take notice. She steps closer to his bed, smiling that soft, pitying smile that Kurt has grown so used to seeing over the past couple of months. “Could you please pass me that leather book over there?”

She nods, picking the book up far too carefully and handing it to Kurt. “Do you need anything else, sir?”

He shakes his head, “I think this will be all for now,” he smiles up at her, patting the thick book happily. The cover is worn under his fingers, soft and smooth, perfect. She gives him one last parting smile and leaves, waving goodbye. He doesn't wave back, eyes going straight to the book in his lap.

The colors have faded over the years, but Kurt can still tell what each piece of fabric looked like when he sowed them on at age seven, fingers trembling and letters cut unevenly. He'd been so proud when he finished...

He opens the book, smiling softly at the newspaper cut out that had sparked his life long obsession with the mysterious Paradise Falls. The article has darkened with age, the page looking slightly yellow, but the picture of explorer William Schuester standing in front of his famed blimp still makes a spark of excitement jump in his heart, causing the heart monitor he's hooked up to to beep obnoxiously for several seconds.

Kurt scowls at it, then turns back to the scrapbook. Next to the article cut out is a picture Kurt's mother took of Kurt standing in a similar position to Schuester, thumb up and eyes alight behind his makeshift goggles. On his vest is a bottle cap that had been attached to a pin. Kurt runs his fingers gently over it, thinking of its home now, and feeling tears well up in his eyes.

He flips the page to find a bunch of childish drawings, all of them labeled neatly by his seven year old self. The first is of what he believed the mysterious creature of Paradise Falls might look like. Looking at it now, Kurt thinks it just looks like an overgrown chicken with brightly colored feathers, but as a child he thought it was the most interesting creature in the world. He'd spent at least an hour on the drawing, legs swinging back and forth behind him as he colored happily.

Beside that drawing is one of a colorful house resting atop a large cliff, looking over a waterfall. Kurt sighs. Oh, how badly he'd wanted to lived there...

There are several other drawings taped to the page – a portrait of William Schuester, a floor plan of what seven year old Kurt thought the inside of his blimp looked like, and another drawing of the creature – but Kurt stares at the drawing of the house the longest. He remembers when they finally bought the house; every single day they would pull out Kurt's scrapbook so they could paint the colors in the right places.

He hopes the colors don't fade.

He turns the page, and his heart monitor begins beeping obnoxiously again. He ignores it, instead, focusing on the single picture taped to the center of the page. It's the first picture of he and Blaine that he has, taken only two days after they met. Blaine still has a cast on his arm but he's smiling brightly and is showing a thumbs up with his other hand. Kurt was still shorter than him at the time – a fact that never ceases to amuse Kurt – and instead of smiling at the camera he is smiling up at Blaine.

Under the picture it reads _This is my best friend, Blaine. He and I will visit Paradise Falls one day!_

Kurt feels tears welling up in his eyes again at the image of them, so young and innocent, so happy. He chuckles when he notices the same pin that Kurt had been wearing in a previous picture, now being displayed proudly on Blaine's chest.

The next page is simply the words _ Adventures I will have! _ Kurt thinks back on when he wrote the words and the adventures he imagined himself having. All the hot air balloon rides, all the wild chases, the villains in his way, with nothing but Blaine and his imagination by his side. 

He carefully sets the book aside, then reaches behind his pillow to pull out the small envelope of pictures he'd asked Blaine to bring him, along with the roll of tape and sharpie he'd acquired from one of the nurses.

The first picture he pulls out of the envelope is the one of he and Blaine on their wedding day, arms around each other, smiling and holding each other as close as possible. Blaine had looked so beautiful on their wedding day, so happy and excited and _radiant_. He'd kept his lip trapped tightly under his teeth throughout the entire ceremony, practically bouncing with joy, and when the priest pronounced them husband and husband he hadn't even waited for permission to kiss Kurt, catapulting himself at him and almost knocking him down.

Finger shaking, he manages to rip off four small pieces of tape and, ever so carefully, tapes the picture to the page. It takes him several minutes to do which frustrates him to no end, but its worth it when he sees the picture safely on the page, his marriage to Blaine officially a part of the adventures he experienced.

There are two pictures next, each almost identical to the other, the only difference between the two being the age Kurt and Blaine are in them. In both Blaine is lying with his back to Kurt's chest, head resting on Kurt's shoulder, fingers entwined with Kurt's and placed on his stomach. They're at the top of a hill, a hill that Kurt had found when he was seventeen and forced Blaine to accompany him to. The hill where they'd shared their first kiss, the hill where Blaine had proposed.

He's not sure who took each picture, as it clearly wasn't either of them, but he doesn't care at the moment, ripping off eight more pieces of tape and painstakingly taping the pictures to the page side by side. He places the one where he and Blaine are teenagers on the left, and the one taken only three years ago on the right.

He can't decide in which picture Blaine looks better.

He flips the page, smooths the page down and pulls out the next picture. It's of he and Blaine standing in front of their freshly painted house, both leaning on their mailbox. Kurt's hair is pulled away from his forehead with a blue polka dot bandana, and Blaine's curls are falling out of their gel confinement. There's a flush high in Kurt's cheeks, and he can just make out a few spots of sweat dotting Blaine's hairline, but they both look far too happy considering how long they'd been painting and how hot it was that day.

He places the next picture on the next page. It's slightly larger than the other pictures, and it shows he and Blaine dancing in their living room, chest to chest, staring into each others eyes and smiling so widely Kurt wonders how their faces didn't break. He remembers when this photo was taken – Blaine's brother had come into town to ask he and Blaine for advice on a new movie he was making where he played a gay man. One of the scenes had involved slow dancing and, well. Cooper had taken the picture without either of them realizing it, framing it and gifting it to them the next Christmas. This was, of course, a copy. The original was still prominently placed in Kurt and Blaine's living room back home.

Or, at least it had been the last time Kurt had been there.

The next picture he pulls out of the envelope instantly has him tearing up. It's a picture of himself, sitting by the large window in their living room, looking off into the distance. He thinks it was taken five or so years ago, but he isn't exactly sure. Kurt doesn't really remember what he was thinking about when the picture was taken, but he does remember hearing the shutter of the camera and turning around to face Blaine, deep frown firmly in place.

“What are you doing?” he'd asked. Blaine smiled sheepishly, placing the camera down on the coffee table and making his way over to where Kurt sat.

“I couldn't help it,” he said, “You looked so beautiful sitting there, staring off into the distance.”

Kurt scoffed, “I look like a prune.”

Blaine just shook his head, took Kurt's hand in his, and kissed the wrinkled skin softly. “You look beautiful.”

Kurt wipes a tear from his eyes, taping the picture to the scrapbook. He wishes he'd told Blaine that he was beautiful more often. His husband never wasted a moment to remind Kurt how attractive he found him, even in their old age. In Kurt's mind, Blaine just grew more handsome as he got older, but he knows he didn't tell Blaine nearly as often as he should have.

There's still time though. He still has time.

There are only three pictures left in the envelope. Kurt places two on one page, smiling softly and sniffling as he does.

The first is of he and Blaine when they were children, probably ten or eleven. They are sitting cross-legged under the tree in Blaine's old backyard, shoulders bumping, eyes squeezed shut and smiles far too wide to be sincere. Around them are pieces of paper full of scribbles; plans. All the plans they'd had, even at that age. All they places they were going to go. All the things they were going to see.

The second picture shows he and Blaine under the tree thirty years later. Kurt is sitting cross-legged and Blaine is leaning over him, kissing him firmly on the lips.

Kurt still thinks it's his favorite picture of the two of them.

He has to wipe a couple of tears away before he flips to a new empty page and pulls the final picture out of the envelope. It's a simple one, just he and Blaine sitting in their living room, each in their designated chair, holding hands and smiling at each other.

Kurt's fingers shake more than they have been until now as he tapes the picture to the center of the page with utmost care. Because this picture... this is the picture that matters most. Out of all the pictures, out of all the memories, this is the picture he hopes Blaine treasures over all others.

The very last picture of the two of them together.

He runs his shaking fingertips over the picture once it's taped down. They both look so happy in that picture, still staring lovingly into each others eyes like they did when they were teenagers; and the way Blaine is looking at Kurt...

His smile is so genuine. So real.

He truly hopes that this isn't the last picture ever taken where Blaine is smiling like that.

His hands are trembling almost too much to continue, but he does anyway, uncapping the sharpie and writing a little message at the edge of the page. Nothing extravagant, just a small note to remind Blaine of how much he means to him, how much he made his life the happiest it could possibly be.

_Thanks for the adventure. Now go have another._

He signs it with his name and a heart, and then closes the scrapbook, tears flowing freely down his cheeks now. He doesn't want to smudge the marker, after all.

He holds the scrapbook tightly to his chest and sobs into it. He cries, and cries; cries tears of joy because he can't possibly imagine living a more fulfilling life; cries tears of sadness because he can't possibly imagine continuing on without Blaine; cries because he knows that Blaine will still be here after he's gone and he hates that he has to leave him.

Cries because he's afraid that Blaine will stop living when Kurt does and Kurt doesn't want him to.

He cries, and cries, and doesn't stop crying until he falls into a deep sleep, scrapbook still cradled close to his chest. 

He's woken up with a soft poke to the side and the smell of fresh coffee. He opens his eyes slowly, hearts skipping a beat when he sees his husband sitting next to him, two mugs of coffee in hand, that soft and beautiful smile lighting up his face.

Kurt sits up, takes the coffee, and then, before he can forget, tells Blaine that he is without a doubt the most beautiful man he has ever met. Blaine's eyes begin to water, and he shakily thanks Kurt, reminds him that Kurt is beautiful as well, always has been. Kurt reaches a hand out, traces over Blaine's face, memorizes every dip, every wrinkle, allows himself to feel the man he's loved for longer than he can even remember.

Without a word, hand still on Blaine's face, he uses his free hand to push the scrapbook towards Blaine. Blaine doesn't take it, not yet, simply places his hand over Kurt's and squeezes it tight as a couple of stray tears escape his eyes. Kurt wipes them away, leans forward as far as he can, and presses a soft kiss to Blaine's chapped lips.

He tastes like salt, grief, and perfection.

“I love you,” he tells him, voice frail, shaking. Blaine nods and cries, squeezes Kurt's hand harder, making sure he feels it, and quietly tells him that he loves him too.

Kurt smiles, kisses Blaine once more, and lies back down, body practically shaking in relief when his head hits the pillow.

He places his hand on top of Blaine's over the scrapbook and hopes that Blaine sees the pictures, hopes he sees his message. Hopes, with his final breath, that Blaine knows that loving him was the greatest adventure of them all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Kurt is in the hospital, on his dying bed, and puts together a scrapbook of all his favorite memories with Blaine. At the end he gives Blaine the scrapbook and dies. He is an old man and has lived a full life. No regrets :)


End file.
